By Ruona Agbroko
August 24, 2009 04:02PMT
Aliyu Shaka is in his late 30s and still lives with his father. Dark-skinned and of average height, he is married with children. No, he is by no means unemployed; he drives a commercial motorcycle for living and takes pride in it. His reasons for still living in the house he was raised in decades ago were entirely compassionate - his father's house lies squarely on the fault line of a devastating gully erosion.
Right next to Number 10, Union Bank Road, Warrake, is a deep gully into which a house has recently sunk, and from which personal effects and building materials could still be seen.
The gully is flanked on the other side by a house whose walls fell and the occupants had to flee before the rest of the house got submerged. All around Warrake are other such gullies. The area is deserted, and the few residents remaining were in no mood to talk. Their grouse is understandable.
Mr. Shaka said his residence in Auchi, Etsako West Local Government Area of Edo State is a tourist centre of sorts for all the wrong reasons. "Mostly, students from the Auchi Polytechnic come here to look at the gully, shake their heads, or laugh. Politicians too will come, promising. Yet, we have not seen lasting solution", he says in smattering English.
The elder Mr. Shaka built his house in 1962. The dilapidated state of the building corroborates this. His son says life was bearable until 1995 when a bank employed a construction company to build drainages to protect its premises from flooding.
"At first a company called Nigercat built some gutters that turned into a gully. Another company called Paloosa worsened everything and now they have all gone. They gave them a contract for a bank, not far from here and they began making small gutters along our side. By the time the rains came, the gutters were wider and deeper, until houses started falling inside them. The whole area has now been cut off. At first, Paloosa were buying bags of cement and dumping them inside the gully, hoping to fill it. But the rain would just come and flood everything. Today, about nine buildings have been swallowed, and many more abandoned."
A question of geography
In Auchi alone, other areas affected include Egelessor, Gaz Momoh, Oben Zogo, Iyekhin and Akpekpe Grammar school road.
As these areas lie on sloping land, the porous red soil and heavy rainfall are a natural recipe for gully erosion. Add extensive, indiscriminate logging activities and bad drainage systems to the mix and the residents' fear that whole communities could be sacked becomes justified. Clem Agba, Edo commissioner for environment and public utilities says; "we are expected to have about 25% of forest reserves [in Edo]. In terms of paperwork, it is showing that we have 12%, but when you go out to the forests and actually do an inventory, we have 8%. And this is seriously contributing to the flood and erosion problems we are having. There are areas where logging is not allowed in the state, to allow for regeneration of the forests."
Last year, Mr. Esoimeme, chairman of Ibore community in Esan-Central local government council told journalists that: "Erosion has created a very big gully, about 80 feet deep. You know our people bury their dead ones round their houses and these erosions have carried many of them away; graves have disappeared and we see bones of our dead ones washed up when it rains; it is very pathetic.
If the situation is not remedied now, it may consume and make the towns go into extinction."
Mr. Shaka says: "For long, we have complained. When PDP was in power, they said Auchi did not vote for PDP and so they are now using vote aspect to determine what they are supposed to do. That is why this thing is getting worse. Nobody has died yet, but houses are collapsing inside the gully. How it happens is this; heavy rain will fall from morning till evening. After some hours, you hear a sliding sound and that's how people become homeless."
‘We are used to it'
In June, the Edo State House of Assembly accused the formerLucky Igbinedion administration of not executing contacts awarded for erosion control between 1999 and 2007.
Media reports at the time quoted the Speaker, Zakawanu Garuba, an Auchi indigene, as saying "the state cannot solve the problem alone, that is why we are also appealing to the federal government to come to our aid."
Mr. Agba confirmed this, "I have visited [the erosion sites] with the honourable minister of environment and permanent secretary of the Ecological Fund. As a state, we have also written to Mr. President to say that what we have clearly goes beyond the capability of the state. We are seeking funding from the federal government through the Ecological Fund to deal with the erosion in Auchi and Queen Ede in Benin. We have had a couple of meetings with the Ecological Fund team but we are yet to get the funding or the necessary approvals.
In the interim, Mr. Shaka's house remains standing at Warrake, marked by a big red ‘X'. He confirms that his aged father and their family have been asked to evacuate. They say we should steer clear but what do you want me to do? What are we supposed to do? Where are we supposed to go? I cannot leave my father alone. All my brothers are not around; some of them are in Port Harcourt, Benin, working. Even my house is in Auchi here but I cannot go to my house and leave my father here. So that is why I am still here.This is our area. We even enter inside the gully and come out. All these houses are abandoned. It's not a new thing to us, since government has made us to get used to it."
August 24, 2009 04:02PMT
Aliyu Shaka is in his late 30s and still lives with his father. Dark-skinned and of average height, he is married with children. No, he is by no means unemployed; he drives a commercial motorcycle for living and takes pride in it. His reasons for still living in the house he was raised in decades ago were entirely compassionate - his father's house lies squarely on the fault line of a devastating gully erosion.
Right next to Number 10, Union Bank Road, Warrake, is a deep gully into which a house has recently sunk, and from which personal effects and building materials could still be seen.
The gully is flanked on the other side by a house whose walls fell and the occupants had to flee before the rest of the house got submerged. All around Warrake are other such gullies. The area is deserted, and the few residents remaining were in no mood to talk. Their grouse is understandable.
Mr. Shaka said his residence in Auchi, Etsako West Local Government Area of Edo State is a tourist centre of sorts for all the wrong reasons. "Mostly, students from the Auchi Polytechnic come here to look at the gully, shake their heads, or laugh. Politicians too will come, promising. Yet, we have not seen lasting solution", he says in smattering English.
The elder Mr. Shaka built his house in 1962. The dilapidated state of the building corroborates this. His son says life was bearable until 1995 when a bank employed a construction company to build drainages to protect its premises from flooding.
"At first a company called Nigercat built some gutters that turned into a gully. Another company called Paloosa worsened everything and now they have all gone. They gave them a contract for a bank, not far from here and they began making small gutters along our side. By the time the rains came, the gutters were wider and deeper, until houses started falling inside them. The whole area has now been cut off. At first, Paloosa were buying bags of cement and dumping them inside the gully, hoping to fill it. But the rain would just come and flood everything. Today, about nine buildings have been swallowed, and many more abandoned."
A question of geography
In Auchi alone, other areas affected include Egelessor, Gaz Momoh, Oben Zogo, Iyekhin and Akpekpe Grammar school road.
As these areas lie on sloping land, the porous red soil and heavy rainfall are a natural recipe for gully erosion. Add extensive, indiscriminate logging activities and bad drainage systems to the mix and the residents' fear that whole communities could be sacked becomes justified. Clem Agba, Edo commissioner for environment and public utilities says; "we are expected to have about 25% of forest reserves [in Edo]. In terms of paperwork, it is showing that we have 12%, but when you go out to the forests and actually do an inventory, we have 8%. And this is seriously contributing to the flood and erosion problems we are having. There are areas where logging is not allowed in the state, to allow for regeneration of the forests."
Last year, Mr. Esoimeme, chairman of Ibore community in Esan-Central local government council told journalists that: "Erosion has created a very big gully, about 80 feet deep. You know our people bury their dead ones round their houses and these erosions have carried many of them away; graves have disappeared and we see bones of our dead ones washed up when it rains; it is very pathetic.
If the situation is not remedied now, it may consume and make the towns go into extinction."
Mr. Shaka says: "For long, we have complained. When PDP was in power, they said Auchi did not vote for PDP and so they are now using vote aspect to determine what they are supposed to do. That is why this thing is getting worse. Nobody has died yet, but houses are collapsing inside the gully. How it happens is this; heavy rain will fall from morning till evening. After some hours, you hear a sliding sound and that's how people become homeless."
‘We are used to it'
In June, the Edo State House of Assembly accused the formerLucky Igbinedion administration of not executing contacts awarded for erosion control between 1999 and 2007.
Media reports at the time quoted the Speaker, Zakawanu Garuba, an Auchi indigene, as saying "the state cannot solve the problem alone, that is why we are also appealing to the federal government to come to our aid."
Mr. Agba confirmed this, "I have visited [the erosion sites] with the honourable minister of environment and permanent secretary of the Ecological Fund. As a state, we have also written to Mr. President to say that what we have clearly goes beyond the capability of the state. We are seeking funding from the federal government through the Ecological Fund to deal with the erosion in Auchi and Queen Ede in Benin. We have had a couple of meetings with the Ecological Fund team but we are yet to get the funding or the necessary approvals.
In the interim, Mr. Shaka's house remains standing at Warrake, marked by a big red ‘X'. He confirms that his aged father and their family have been asked to evacuate. They say we should steer clear but what do you want me to do? What are we supposed to do? Where are we supposed to go? I cannot leave my father alone. All my brothers are not around; some of them are in Port Harcourt, Benin, working. Even my house is in Auchi here but I cannot go to my house and leave my father here. So that is why I am still here.This is our area. We even enter inside the gully and come out. All these houses are abandoned. It's not a new thing to us, since government has made us to get used to it."
*Photo by Hyacinth Iyerosa
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